


His Best Weapon

by Canon_Is_Relative



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: And a pacifist, Angst, Christopher Pike is a BAMF, M/M, Paternal!Chris Pike, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 10:17:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1895319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the years, Jim catalogues the weapons in Pike's arsenal but doesn't learn to use the most important ones until Pike is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Best Weapon

Captain Pike didn’t carry a weapon. 

Well — he did. He would, if he had to. When orders technically demanded it. And he would never do anything stupid like go unarmed into a capital-S Situation. Not to mention, as Jim knew firsthand from last week in the gym, that his right hook was not to be underestimated. But he didn’t like guns. Didn’t like phasers. Had waged a long and vocal PR war with The Powers That Be over the number and power of the weapons arrays that were slated for the _Enterprise_ , even before she was his in writing. Jim had read about it on the feeds before he even knew who Pike was, and brought it up one night when the bar was almost empty, after all the cadets who flocked around Pike wherever he went had stumbled home to sleep it off before class in the morning. All but one stubborn James T. Kirk, who might be a first-year cadet but who definitely didn’t _flock_ anywhere and who certainly was not drunk. He just really found it important to know if Pike truly thought the Klingons or, or the _Romulans_ , Sir, would give a good god-damn if the _Enterprise_ was or was not a scientific vessel, or, or if she was or was not on a mission of peace? Jim really needed to know if Pike thought it was worth it to risk hundreds of lives on an ideal; on a dream.

Captain Pike carried a weapon, all right. Jim Kirk felt stone-cold sober as he walked back to his dorm, still reeling from the effects of it.

 

Chris Pike carried a weapon, Jim tried to joke one night as they lay sprawled out on the floor of Pike’s spartan quarters. 

Chris carried a weapon; it was called the goddamn chain of command and it was choking Jim. Pushing himself up and wincing at the burn against his elbows and knees, he looked down at Pike and asked if he’d accept his resignation from Starfleet so they could do this maybe more than once a century, and maybe without the door triple-locked and the security system turned off. And it wasn’t goddamn fair (but it was really goddamn sexy) how Pike could go from blissful and fucked-out to inscrutable and pissed-off without a blink or a hitch or a second’s warning to let Jim get his act together. 

Chris looked hard at Jim for a long moment, then sent him packing with an earful that Jim forgot the second he was out the door. But he never forgot that look; sad and angry both, something more complex than either that Jim didn’t understand for years.

 

Admiral Pike carried a cane, and a good deal more scars than most men his age, and never, ever, a weapon.

Which was a goddamn lie, Jim thought, sucking down cheap shots in a dive bar, making eyes at the pretty girl next to him between drinks.

_You don’t listen to anybody, you don’t comply with the rules, and you don’t respect the chair. You know why? Because you’re not ready for it._

Under a whiskey haze Jim could admit that the words didn’t mean shit without the look that drove them home. _I’m disappointed in you, son._ Again. Just like the day they met. Just like the day he told Pike that _Enterprise_ needed the weapons Pike didn’t want her to have. Just like when Pike caught him thinking with his dick instead of his brain. Just like every other fucking day of the week. A bitter laugh worked its way past his numb lips, quickly hidden behind another swallow. Whatever _greatness_ Pike thought he’d seen in him, Jim should have known he couldn’t keep up the act forever. If there was ever anyone who could make him feel ten feet tall one minute and lower than dirt and just as filthy the next, it was that goddamn sonofabitch who tricked him into joining up in the first place.

 

Pike had always carried a weapon. Several, actually. They were called truth, and trust; they were called faith and conviction; they were called love and honor and hope. They were weapons in an arsenal Jim never thought he’d need until Pike wasn’t there to wield them anymore. And in the aftermath, Jim Kirk picked them up and vowed to handle them with the care and respect that Pike had done, that Pike had tried to teach him. His words, his hands, that look in his eyes always the first thing in Jim’s mind when he stepped onto the bridge of his ship — their ship. _I dare you to do better._

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Weapons. Star Trek AOS, Pike/Kirk, that look he gave was his best weapon.
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/531993.html?thread=76130841#t76130841).


End file.
